Islamic position
This page speaks to you, the Christian reader, directly. It says what Islam asks of you and why, in the words of the Qur’an and of the Messiah you already honour.
The one God
“Say: He is God, One. God, the Eternal. He begets not, nor is He begotten. And there is none like unto Him” (112:1-4).
The Messiah said it first. Asked which commandment comes first of all, he answered: “Hear, O Israel: the Lord our God, the Lord is one” (Mark 12:29). You believe he said it, so believe it with him.
The sin that is not forgiven
Every soul answers for itself. “No bearer of burdens bears the burden of another” (6:164; 53:38), and Ezekiel says the same: “The soul who sins shall die. The son shall not suffer for the iniquity of the father” (Ezekiel 18:20).
God has named one sin He will not forgive in a person who dies on it: “God does not forgive that partners be joined with Him; He forgives what is less than that to whom He wills” (4:48). That sin is shirk, giving to anyone what belongs to God alone.
Worship of the Messiah is shirk, and so is prayer to his mother or to the saints. Calling God “the third of three” is the excess the Qur’an names and forbids (4:171; 5:73).
What the Messiah taught
He told his people whom to worship. In the Qur’an: “O Children of Israel, worship God, my Lord and your Lord” (5:72). In John: “I am ascending to my Father and your Father, to my God and your God” (John 20:17).
Asked how to enter life, he answered: “keep the commandments” (Matthew 19:17). And he warned the men who would call on his name: “Not everyone who says to me, ‘Lord, Lord’, will enter the kingdom of heaven, but the one who does the will of my Father” (Matthew 7:21).
On the Day of Judgement God will ask him whether he told people to take him and his mother as gods. He will answer: “It is not for me to say what I have no right to say” (5:116). On that day he disowns the worship you give him.
His words against the Trinity
Measure the doctrine you were taught by the words of the man it is about. He prayed to God, face down on the ground: “My Father, if it is possible, let this cup pass from me” (Matthew 26:39). One who prays has a Lord above him.
He said there was knowledge God had kept from him: “concerning that day or that hour, no one knows, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father” (Mark 13:32). He refused even the word “good”: “Why do you call me good? No one is good except God alone” (Mark 10:18).
And he named the true God for you in one sentence: “this is eternal life, that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom you have sent” (John 17:3). The only true God, and a man He sent. That is the testimony of Islam, in John.
The Qur’an gives the reason in 3 words of Arabic: “they both used to eat food” (5:75). He and his mother were hungry, ate and slept, and God has no need of any of it.
Scholarly consensus
The one verse that states the Trinity outright, “the Father, the Word, and the Holy Ghost: and these three are one” (1 John 5:7 in the King James Version), is missing from the Greek manuscripts until the late Middle Ages, and stands in only a handful of late ones. Bruce Metzger’s Textual Commentary gives the evidence, and every modern critical edition leaves the words out.
Islamic position
So the doctrine has to be built from verses that never say it. The Qur’an’s word for that building is excess: “O People of the Book, do not go to excess in your religion, and say nothing of God but the truth” (4:171).
Forgiveness before the cross
The Messiah forgave sins in Capernaum, years before any cross: “Son, your sins are forgiven” (Mark 2:5). He forgave the woman who wept at his feet, “for she loved much” (Luke 7:47-48).
He taught you to ask for it daily, in the prayer that bears his name: “forgive us our debts, as we also have forgiven our debtors” (Matthew 6:12). And when the Pharisees asked why he ate with sinners, he sent them back to Hosea: “Go and learn what this means: ‘I desire mercy, and not sacrifice’” (Matthew 9:13; Hosea 6:6).
Ezekiel puts it plainly: “if a wicked person turns away from all his sins that he has committed and keeps all my statutes, he shall surely live; none of the transgressions that he has committed shall be remembered against him” (Ezekiel 18:21-22). The Qur’an says the same to you today.
The way back
The door is open. Of the very people who said “God is the third of three”, the Qur’an asks: “Will they not turn to God and ask His forgiveness? God is Forgiving, Merciful” (5:74).
“Say: O My servants who have wronged yourselves, do not despair of the mercy of God. God forgives all sins” (39:53). Whoever repents, believes and does good, God turns their bad deeds into good ones (25:70).
No priest stands between you and that forgiveness, and no blood is asked of you. The Messiah sent the tax collector home justified for one sentence: “God, be merciful to me, a sinner” (Luke 18:13-14).
What you did before is wiped away. ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ hesitated over his past, and the Prophet said to him: “Do you not know that Islam destroys what came before it?” (Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim, Kitāb al-īmān).
And you lose nothing of ʿĪsā. Those given the Book before who believe “will be given their reward twice” (28:52-54).
The testimony
Islam is entered by testimony, spoken with belief: Ashhadu an lā ilāha illā Allāh, wa ashhadu anna Muḥammadan rasūl Allāh. “I bear witness that there is no god but God, and I bear witness that Muḥammad is the messenger of God.”
The Prophet said that whoever bears witness that there is no god but God alone, that Muḥammad is His servant and messenger, that ʿĪsā is the servant of God and His messenger, His word cast to Maryam and a spirit from Him, and that Paradise and the Fire are real, God will admit to Paradise (al-Bukhārī 3435).
So the testimony asks you to give up only what ʿĪsā never claimed. Keep him as he described himself: “I am the servant of God; He has given me the Book and made me a prophet” (19:30).
If you are ready, say it, and go to a mosque near you; the imam will teach you the prayer. If you are not ready, read his words on the Messiah in Islam and his life on The Gospel According to Islam, and ask God tonight to guide you.
If Paul of Tarsus is what holds you back, start with Leave the gospel of Paul of Tarsus. What God says you become is on Who you are as a servant of God.
What changes when you are Muslim
You pray 5 times a day, standing, bowing and putting your forehead to the ground, as the Messiah fell on his face to pray (Matthew 26:39). You give a portion of your wealth each year to the poor (zakāh, 9:60).
You fast the month of Ramaḍān from dawn to sunset (2:183), and the Messiah fasted 40 days in the wilderness (Matthew 4:2). If you are able, you make the pilgrimage to Makkah once in your life (3:97).
You leave pork and wine. The Torah the Messiah kept forbids the first (Leviticus 11:7), and the Qur’an forbids both (2:173; 5:90).
You keep your family. “Accompany them in this world with kindness”, the Qur’an says of parents who are not Muslim (31:15), and God “does not forbid you from being kind and just” to those who have not fought you over your religion (60:8).
What the Qur’an says of Christians
It speaks to you as people of a Book, and some of what it says is warm. “You will find the nearest of them in affection to the believers those who say, ‘We are Christians’, because among them are priests and monks, and they are not arrogant” (5:82).
It continues: when they hear what was sent down to the Messenger, “you see their eyes overflow with tears because of the truth they recognise” (5:83). And it says that among the People of the Book are those who believe in God and in what was sent down to you and to them, “humble before God” (3:199).
That is the reader this page is written for. The Qur’an calls you to “a word common between us and you: that we worship none but God, associate nothing with Him, and that none of us takes others as lords besides God” (3:64).
Questions about becoming Muslim
How does a Christian become a Muslim?
By bearing witness that there is no god but God and that Muḥammad is His messenger, with belief in the heart. Baptism, a fee and a sponsor are all unneeded; saying it before others at a mosque means there is someone to teach you the prayer.
Do I have to stop believing in Jesus?
Belief in ʿĪsā is part of Islam: Muslims believe he is the Messiah, born of a virgin, a prophet and messenger of God, raised to Him, and to return (3:45-55; 4:157-159). The Qur’an counts whoever believes in some messengers and rejects others a disbeliever (4:150-151).
Will God forgive my worship of Jesus?
Yes, if you turn from it. The Qur’an puts the offer to the very people who called God the third of three (5:73-74), and the Prophet said that Islam destroys what came before it (Ṣaḥīḥ Muslim).
What is shirk?
Joining partners with God: worshipping, praying to or calling divine anyone or anything besides Him. “Shirk is a great wrong” (31:13), and it is the one sin the Qur’an says God will not forgive in a person who dies on it (4:48).
Do I have to change my name?
No rule requires it. A name with a bad meaning is changed, and many converts keep the name their parents gave them; the Prophet’s companions kept theirs.
What will happen to my Christian family?
You owe them kindness and respect for as long as they live (31:14-15). Islam asks you to keep your ties with them, and to invite them by your conduct before your words (16:125).
Sources
- The Qur’an: 2:173, 183; 3:45-55, 64, 97, 199; 4:48, 150-151, 157-159, 171; 5:72-75, 82-83, 90, 116; 6:164; 9:60; 16:125; 19:30; 25:70; 28:52-54; 31:13-15; 39:53; 53:38; 60:8; 112:1-4.
- The Bible: Leviticus 11:7; Ezekiel 18:20-22; Hosea 6:6; Matthew 4:2; 6:12; 7:21; 9:13; 19:17; 26:39; Mark 2:5; 10:18; 12:29; 13:32; Luke 7:47-48; 18:13-14; John 17:3; 20:17; 1 John 5:7.
- Al-Bukhārī, al-Ṣaḥīḥ, 3435 (Kitāb aḥādīth al-anbiyāʾ), on the testimony that names ʿĪsā.
- Muslim, al-Ṣaḥīḥ, Kitāb al-īmān, the report of ʿAmr ibn al-ʿĀṣ: “Islam destroys what came before it.”
- Bruce M. Metzger, A Textual Commentary on the Greek New Testament, 2nd ed. (1994), on 1 John 5:7-8.